Companion site to Creating Digital History (NYU GA HIST.2033)

The Brevoort Hotel

A place called The Brevoort Hotel kept making appearances in my research on turn of the century Greenwich Village bohemians. After some investigation I discovered that the Hotel was one of the most significant spaces where bohemians met, conversed, and promoted each other.

The Brevoort was one of the city’s oldest hotels and it derived the majority of its patronage from wealthy Europeans visiting the United States. The hotel was located on Fifth Avenue, in between Eighth and Ninth Streets, situating it in the heart of bohemian activity. On that same short block Mark Twain lived from 1904-1908, and Mabel Dodge lived and held her Salon from 1912-1919. Despite the Brevoort’s extremely conservative management, its sheer proximity to the Village made it the perfect meeting place for the bohemians to congregate, spending hours in its basement cafe.

But like so many Village spaces, in 1954, the entire block was demolished, including the hotel and the former residence’s of Mark Twain, Mabel Dodge and Washington Irving, and replaced by the 19 story Brevoort Apartments.